I've said a lot of things about this particular Gamera movie,I have always liked the original Gamera series,especially Return of the Giant Monsters.

But I also have a fondness for this one because I never saw until 1985,taped it,the UHF channel was comming clear as a bell!,yet I knew something wasn't right about the Guiron Gaos fight,so when the redubbed SF version was on the Sci-Fi station,I just taped that 2mins and put it on my AIP version.

In a way Sandy Frank did some good,giving us Gamera vs. Zigra,Speed Racer,Legend of the Dinosaurs,and a whole host of bad movies for MST3K.

Destroy All Planets and Attack of the Monsters were not the original concept.After the huge success of Gamera vs. Gaos Daie made two live shows called Invasion of the Virains and Terror on Planet Terra staring everybodies favorite turtle Gamera!,since they were live,they couldn't splice them into movies.For a half hour each Saturday an episode was shown,this was the latter half of 1967 & early 1968.

When Daie announced they were going to make movies from these two matinee features,the kids of Japan couldn't be happier!.

However by that time,for some reason,Masaichi Nagata and 3 other daie workers,(thankfully not Noriaki Yuasa),were using company founds to bribe public officials and who knows for what other things ,you can read a little about that over at Sci-Fi Japan News.

Thankfully AIP was still in the monster making mood,they helped Daie with 3 of there last 4 Gamera movies,Destroy All Planets,(really made on the cheap,with mostly stock footage from the original 3 Gamera films,with new scenes filmed in outer space and on beach front property).Attack of the Monsters though had a little more ump,thanks to financial help from AIP,they also gave financial backing for Gamera vs. Monster-X as well.

However after that AIP sinced the trend in movies was moving away from monsters,in 1971 they chose Godzilla vs. Headarh over Gamera vs. Zigra as there final monster entry in there long and distinguished career of giving us some of the best and memorable monster classic ever to be seen on Creature Feature!.

I have a somewhat good VHS tape of Attack of the Monsters,you might say I was the first one to put the Sandy Frank 2mins. of Gurion chopping Gaos onto the AIP version,I asked Fred Olen Ray why he didn't put that in his Gamera double feature with Destroy All Planets,he told me he wasn't allowed to tamper with Sandy Frank films,to this day I have my doughts about that.

However with Keith Picozzi it was different,I gave him that 2mins. and he put it in his AIP version,I also gave him the best AIP X-From Outer Space.

He told me he wasn't feeling well and I don't know what if anything if he's still with us or not,Showa Video's changed hands and now it's impossible to get into the websight.

But the last things he did for me were this,he told me to give him the best of my War of the Monsters,and he'd combined it with the best of his,the result,I now have the best true color AIP WOTMs one else will ever see likewise the RKO Mysterains and the real AIP Frankenstine Conquers the World.My only regret is not giving him my War of the Gargantuas and Godzilla vs. The Thing videos.

What was the gamera movie where he fought a giant lizard that hatched from an opal, show rainbows of destruction from glowing spines on it's back and blew ice mist from it's tongue? Didn't it eat someone alive in that movie?

BTW, can I get a good image of gamera? I'd like to do a RPG poster that has a pic of gamera with a caption that reads "GM BURNOUT: When the GMs newest monster is a giant, boar tusked, jet propelled, flying, fire breathing turtle, it's time for him to take a break."

War of the Monsters was never intended to be a child oriented vehicle,but who knows perhaps from the rotting flesh and decaying skulls of dead faces may come forth another Barugon,someday.

Anyway,I don't know what's happened to Keith Picozzi,but Showa Video's changed hands and for some reason the site is impossible to get into,so that means if you wanted the complete AIP version,(with the Sandy Frank 2mins of Gurion chopping Gaos),I hope everyone got it before this happened,I don't know why Retromedia or Alpha Video didn't put that 2mins from the SF version into the AIP version,Keith and I did.

Destroy All Planets and Attack of the Monsters were not the original concept.After the huge success of Gamera vs. Gaos Daie made two live shows called Invasion of the Virains and Terror on Planet Terra staring everybodies favorite turtle Gamera!,since they were live,they couldn't splice them into movies.For a half hour each Saturday an episode was shown,this was the latter half of 1967 & early 1968.

When Daie announced they were going to make movies from these two matinee features,the kids of Japan couldn't be happier!.

Thankfully AIP was still in the monster making mood,they helped Daie with 3 of there last 4 Gamera movies,Destroy All Planets,(really made on the cheap,with mostly stock footage from the original 3 Gamera films,with new scenes filmed in outer space and on beach front property).Attack of the Monsters though had a little more ump,thanks to financial help from AIP,they also gave financial backing for Gamera vs. Monster-X as well.

However after that AIP sinced the trend in movies was moving away from monsters,in 1971 they chose Godzilla vs. Headarh over Gamera vs. Zigra as there final monster entry in there long and distinguished career of giving us some of the best and memorable monster classic ever to be seen on Creature Feature!.

this isn't true. AIP gave no money to Daiei at all to make the Gamera movies, except to import them directly to US TV. GODZILLA VS THE SMOG MONSTER was way more marketable, and went to the theaters first, then to TV.check out the new DVDs from Shout! Factory, they are awesome.

They don't make 'em like this anymore... I say bring back " Creature Features " to the local TV channels and lets have a Gamera-Fest ! I remember in the early 70's watching Gamera Films as a child. Viras and Guiron were the Films played the most.. Gammera, Gaos & Barugon were rarely seen in my area of the map, but all those Godzilla movies filled in the gaps on the local late night channels.. There is something magical about watching Japanese Kaiju movies at the midnight hour... - Long Live Cornjob! javascript:void(0);